Quotes About Language

Words, like tranquil waters behind a dam, can become reckless and uncontrollable torrents of destruction when released without caution and wisdom.

Learn the Arabic language; it will sharpen your wisdom.

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language.

Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.

The best clue to what a person thinks is what he says.

First, cut out all the wisdom, then cut out all the adjectives.

I tweet, therefore my entire life has shrunk to 140 character chunks of instant event and predigested gnomic wisdom. And swearing.

In our evolution language has been the greatest single contribution to our understanding and misunderstanding

Words matter, and the right words matter most of all. In the end they're all that remain of us.

To keep the air fresh among words is the secret of verbal cleanliness.

The very greatest is the alphabet, for in it lies the deepest wisdom; yet only he can fathom it, who truly knows how to put it together.

I would bet that the average teenager in this country has not used the word 'wisdom' in the past year

From purest wells of English undefiled None deeper drank than he, the New World's Child, Who in the language of their farm field spoke The wit and wisdom of New England folk.

The word capital, as philologists trace it, comes down to us from a time when wealth was estimated in cattle, and a man's income depended upon the number of head he could keep for their increase.

Read the dictionary from A to Izzard today. Get a vocabulary. Brush up on your diction. See whether wisdom is just a lot of language.

Language is our way of communicating what we want and who we are. By using bad language, we diminish the divine spark within us that defines our humanity.

There is a negative proof of the value of Latin: No one seems to boast of not knowing it.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, dance is not a universal 'language' but many languages and dialects. There are close to 6000 verbal languages, and probably that many dance languages.

Once sent out, a word takes wings beyond recall.

I love the inappropriateness of age-old wisdom in modern slang. These things are all so wonderful to me.

The rose called by any other name would smell as sweet.

Jargon is the replacement for the naturally metaphorical vernacular of the people. If their speech reflects their thinking, then there are many professionals and politicians, trade union leaders and civil servants who know not what they do. They are not merely neglecting a glorious heritage of wonderful language; they are obscuring the paths of truth.

To remain monolingual reduces the mind to the confines of a tramline.

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until... we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say "I lost it."